Newspaper Mulch Help!

Granny · May 26, 2007

Thanks to the kiddo and her best friend, we got all 100 or so tomatoes plus the peppers, melons, cukes, basil and heaven only knows what else planted yesterday! The entire 1/2 acre hilltop is full up except for enough room for one short row of something at the far edge.

There is a bit of a problem though - the guy who did the "rototilling" for me did a you know what-poor job on half the hill. What he did was break the sod, not rototill, so we ended up digging it by hand. (I am too old for this!) So, I'm going to go with the newspaper mulch method, topped by the 3 bales of straw living in the chicken coop (Haven't been any chickens in there in years!) and let the 'maters sprawl instead of staking them, since I think you would need a pneumatic drill to get a hole deep enough for a decent stake.

Advice needed: How many layers of newspaper? Water first or after you lay the paper? How thick do you think I should go with the straw?

Thanks so much for all your help!

PS. As some of you know, I homeschool my grandchild. This year we happen to be studying plants, so about 10 days ago we took some supermarket tomatoes that were a little past their prime and fermented them to learn about seed saving. They came out of the fermentation pots night before last and are drying in the shed. Can you think of any reason I should not let her plant them just for kicks next year? (Other than the fact that they are just ordinary supermarket tomatoes?)

May 26, 2007	#1
Granny Tomatovillian™ Honoree Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 507	Newspaper Mulch Help! Thanks to the kiddo and her best friend, we got all 100 or so tomatoes plus the peppers, melons, cukes, basil and heaven only knows what else planted yesterday! The entire 1/2 acre hilltop is full up except for enough room for one short row of something at the far edge. There is a bit of a problem though - the guy who did the "rototilling" for me did a you know what-poor job on half the hill. What he did was break the sod, not rototill, so we ended up digging it by hand. (I am too old for this!) So, I'm going to go with the newspaper mulch method, topped by the 3 bales of straw living in the chicken coop (Haven't been any chickens in there in years!) and let the 'maters sprawl instead of staking them, since I think you would need a pneumatic drill to get a hole deep enough for a decent stake. Advice needed: How many layers of newspaper? Water first or after you lay the paper? How thick do you think I should go with the straw? Thanks so much for all your help! PS. As some of you know, I homeschool my grandchild. This year we happen to be studying plants, so about 10 days ago we took some supermarket tomatoes that were a little past their prime and fermented them to learn about seed saving. They came out of the fermentation pots night before last and are drying in the shed. Can you think of any reason I should not let her plant them just for kicks next year? (Other than the fact that they are just ordinary supermarket tomatoes?)